


do me a favor and break my nose

by bracelitperson



Category: Fight Club (1999)
Genre: Angst, Bisexual Marla Singer, Canon-Typical Violence, Fluff, Humor, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Post-Canon, every romantic trope known to man, i do not touch on her girlfriend a lot sadly, i took most of the dialogue in the first chapter from a script i found online, i wanted to rewrite a scene and now it’s this, ignore my references to other works of fiction you don’t see it, mentions of sex but no smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:35:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26473510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bracelitperson/pseuds/bracelitperson
Summary: Tyler and Jack work through some issues and they deal with the rest of their lives as best they can.
Relationships: Tyler Durden/Narrator
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> here’s a link to the script i took a bunch of dialogue from for the first chapter if you wanna check it out: https://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Fight-Club.html

I enter, look around. The parking lot is empty. I huff in frustration and bolt to the stairs. I enter the second-floor parking lot, heaving and sweating.

I go from one support post to another, trying to find that damn van. How did I know it’s a van? I shake the thought out and finally see the car across the garage. 

I run towards it and open the doors quickly, climb inside between the bombs lined up on the wall. There’s a digital clock ticking down from 10:05. I move to pull the lid off the canister in the middle and open it...

“Could be worse...” I startle and look up to Tyler in the passenger seat, his head resting on the edge of the headrest. He looks like a fucking dog that just got a bone. 

“You could be standing under 37 stories of steel and concrete with 150 gallons of nitroglycerin.” 

He chuckles around the gum in his mouth, that dumbass smirk a lit on his face. God, I hate that I still like it. I ignore the butterflies in my stomach and point to the bombs. 

“You... you can't be serious about this.” The apparent figment of my imagination rolls his eyes. 

“What a ridiculous thing to say.” Tyler looks very amused. 

“I can't let you...”

“...go through with this? What are you going to do?” 

“I'm going to...”

“...stop me?”

“I'm not going...” 

“...to let this happen!” He says mockingly. I feel my brain start to melt. I don’t like his smirk anymore.

“Stop finishing...”

“...your sentences! They're  _our_ sentences. Get your mind around that.” Tyler gets out of the car and goes to the back, leans against the open doors with a dumb fucking look on his face. I turn around to look at him, my legs spread out on the uneven floor of the van. 

“The buildings were evacuated thirty minutes ago. Everything's going exactly as planned,” He explains it calmly, still making that stupid face. It looks like he cares about me or something. 

“You don't know that. There could still be people inside!” He sighs and crosses his arms. 

“Maybe. Maybe a couple of guys with shaved heads couldn't synchronize their watches.Good riddance.” I look back at the bomb, scoot back towards it and wipe the sweat dripping down my forehead. I reach for the wires. 

“I wouldn't be doing that. Unless you know which wires are what...” Tyler leans forward behind me, peeking over my shoulder. I shake him off. 

“If you know, I know.” I hold the gun underneath my armpit, hands tangling through the colored wires. Tyler makes a  tsk noise behind me. 

“Or... maybe I knew you'd know, so I spent the whole day thinking about the wrong ones.” I glance back at him. He’s trying to make his face unreadable, but Tyler’s like a child, he gets too excited. We’re also the same person apparently so maybe that’s how I know. I choose the green wire and hold it in my fingers steadily. 

“If I'm wrong, we're both dead,” Tyler scoffs behind me.

“This is not about martyrdom,” I twist the green wire around my finger. I hesitate and glance back at Tyler, who looks bored while  he glances to the side.

I see him glancing back at me, curious about what I’ll do. It’s like he doesn’t know I could read him with my eyes closed. 

“I’m pulling the green wire.” Tyler peeps up, eyes a little wider than before. 

“Green? Did you say green?” Tyler comes a little closer, leaning in to try and get a look. He actually seems genuinely concerned. I hesitate again. 

“Yes...”

“Don't pull the green wire. Pull anything but the green wire.” He tests it out, his voice like a child telling a lie. I give him my best bitch face from my position. 

“Fuck you.” He chuckles and chews his gum. 

“Been there, done that.“ He turns back to serious in a second and looks at me with that puppy dog look he thinks he’s perfected. 

“I’m serious, that’s the wrong one.” Shit. Maybe he has perfected it. I feel myself swallow and nudge the wire. My fingers tremble.

A moment of silence and then Tyler’s heeled boots squeak against the floor of the car lot and the sound of a car screeching to stop below us.

“Hear that? Marla's here. Just in the nick of time, eh?” Tyler smacks his gum. I look at him and crawl back out of the van. Tyler points towards the railing with a shrug. 

“See for yourself,” I walk towards the railing, grabbing the gun in my hand from my armpit and peeking back at Tyler every few seconds. I glance over the railing.

A bus idles below, the rusty door wide open, surrounded by space monkeys like flies to a rotting corpse. They drag Marla out, kicking and screaming.

“You motherfuckers!” She screams as they carry her into the building. I lean against the railing, suddenly exhausted. I breathe in. 

“I've got everything. The bombs. The army. Marla.” I turn around, my back against the thin railing. I kind of hope it breaks, hope it sends me spiraling down the 2 floors and cracks my neck. 

“Bob is dead, Tyler. The police blew a hole in his head. Was that part of your plan?” He thinks for a moment, shrugs. His fur jacket makes a crinkle noise as he does it.

“Bob was a grown man. In any great struggle, there will be casualties,” He has that small smile on his face. The one he has before he says something he thinks is funny. I feel emotions wash over my chest as I watch him. 

“Wouldn't that be implicit in the name? Project ‘Mayhem’?” 

“Fuck your struggle. I want out.” His smile falls suddenly and he looses his relaxed posture.

“You want out?” It’s one of the first times I’ve seen Tyler look unsure. 

“I quit.” He scoffs, hesitant. 

“Not an option, my little soldier, for the most obvious of reasons. You need to get with the program,” He glances at his watch, lip between his teeth. 

“Seven minutes. Let's get out of here.” He walks away. I look down at the gun in my hand and lock my finger on the trigger. I look back up at him, his back to me. I point the gun at him. 

“Tyler.” 

“Yeah?” He keeps walking towards the stairwell. I cock the gun.

“Defuse the bomb.” He stops walking. He turns around, that fucking gleam in his eye.

“Ask me nicely.” I keep my hand as steady as possible on the gun. 

“Defuse the bomb, please.” He gives me a soft smile, like this is some kind of love story. 

“Defuse the bomb?” 

“Yes,” He strides towards the bomb, his gum smacking to the beat of his steps and my heart. 

“Please.” Tyler climbs into the van gracefully, reaches over to the bomb. He grips the green wire and yanks it. The clock stops. The green wire is limp in his hand like some sort of trophy. I lower the gun with relief. 

“I did that for you. As a gesture,” He hops out of the van and slowly walks towards me. 

“Now, how fast can you run? There are ten other bombs, in ten other buildings in the immediate area. If you're going to get them all, you better get cracking.” He looks at his watch again as he stands in front of me now, the gun limp in my hand. 

“Six minutes. Green wires, remember. I'll be upstairs,” He turns to go as I stand there stunned. 

“Wait!” He turns around and comes back closer to me.

“What?” He whispers it right against my face, something that feels like poetry. His breath smells like mint and smoke. I lean in a little bit, his lips resting against mine. I kiss him. He kisses back, gentle and sweet. 

He doesn’t kiss me rough like I imagined he would. I feel that ever so small smirk against my lips. When we pull back, his gum now in my mouth, he smiles. I pull the gun to his abdomen and shoot him. He pulls back, almost betrayed. It didn’t work. 

“Whoa! What the hell?” 

“What-“ He frowns. I’ve never seen him frown. I guess today is the today for all these new things. I don’t like this new thing. 

“What did you expect to happen?” He sounds like a kicked puppy. I honestly don’t know what I expected. It’s funny. Maybe I can’t live without Tyler. I’m still new to this same body thing. 

He punches me. The gun clatters to the ground as my back hits the railing. It knocks any oxygen I had in my lungs out. He kicks me in the chest before I attempt to catch my breath. I clutch my chest.

My head knocks against the metal floor as Tyler flees for the stairs. I blink the blur from my eyes and spot the gun a few feet away from me. My head pounds. I grab it and stumble up, head for the staircase. I smash the door open and run up the stairs. 

God, I fucking hate stairs.

I aim the gun up at nothing as I look around. He dead legs me and I go falling to the cold metal floor again.

I’m gonna have a concussion after this.

He looks down at me as I reach for the gun and aim it at his chest. 

“Fire at will,” I hesitate. I seem to do that a lot around him. He smacks the gun out of my hand, straddles me to the ground. He punches me in the face, I punch him in the stomach. 

Then he kisses me, all teeth and I kiss back. For some reason, I think of the first time we fought and I remember how pretty he looked bloody. He wraps his hand around my throat and bangs my head against the floor. I promptly pass out. 

— —

I feel dizzy, like there’s something important happening. I snap awake. Shit. I look around or try too. I blink my eyes till they focus as much as they can. I turn my head. Tyler brings the gun up and puts it in my mouth.

I freeze and look up at him, the gun clacking against my teeth. He looks solemn. It doesn’t look right on him. He sits himself in my lap, the gun not moving slightly from the motion. He puts his arms around me, his legs spread around my waist.

I see the city lights out of the corner of my eye from the floor to ceiling windows. He could never do anything without flare. He looks at his watch. 

“One minute.” He looks at the window behind us. 

“This is it. Ground zero. Maybe you should say a few words, to mark the occasion.” 

I mumble around the barrel of the gun. He waits for me to tongue it to the corner of my mouth.

“I still can’t think of anything.” He snorts as he checks his watch again. The gun leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

“It’s getting exciting now,” 

He climbs out of my lap, the gun going with him so he can look out the window. His hand lingers on my neck as he gazes at the city. I look back at him, see down the 31 stories out the window. 

“Think of all we've accomplished.” He knocks some kind of beat against the wall with his knuckle. It sounds familiar. He glances at his watch again. 

“Thirty seconds.” He turns back to the window. I just now realize he took his jacket off and all he has on is that tank top with comic strips on it. I watch his shoulders as he cracks his neck.

“Out these windows, we will view economical collapse. One step close to global equilibrium,” He turns around with a stupid fucking soft smile on his face. 

“I'm glad you're here with me.” I hate that it makes me melt from the inside. He turns back to the skyline, the moon reflecting off his now shaved head. I attempt to talk, but my voice feels like chalk. 

“Can’t you call it off?” It comes out a little desperate, but when am I anything less when it comes to Tyler. 

“It's out of our hands,” Another watch glance.

“This is it.”

“Please, Tyler, we can fix this.” 

He gives me an almost sad look. I’m tired of his dumb fucking beautiful face. He walks back towards me and places his hand on my cheek. 

“It’s not broken, psycho-boy.” He gives me a small smile, kisses my forehead and walks back to the window. 

“Fifteen seconds now. Can you see alright?” He leans against the wall and looks out to the surrounding buildings drowned in lights from the people still working in their little offices. He looks excited. I close my eyes, despaired. All these people are gonna die just because I hated my life, just because I love the son of a bitch that ruined it. 

“ 5... 4... 3... 2...” 

Out the window, the skyline remains unchanged. No explosions, no war alarms. Nothing. A beat of silence. I open my eyes. More silence. I look to Tyler who looks like a mix of surprised and pissed off. 

“What the fuck!” I let out a sigh of relief as I realize what happened. 

“Paraffin.” He turns around quickly, still pissed. I hate that he looks so good while he’s mad. 

“What?” I swallow the lump in my throat. 

“Paraffin. They mixed nitro with paraffin. I saw it floating in the bomb. They must’ve run out of cotton and Epsom salt. Paraffin is iffy at best.”

Paraffin had never worked for me. 

Tyler huffs and starts pacing. I always hated when he paced, made me nervous. I rub my sore jaw, allow myself a smile. 

“God damn it!” 

“Not exactly according to plan,” He gives me a deadpan look. 

“Do we have to do everything ourselves?!” He stops pacing, lets out a sigh of disgust. He reaches into his pocket and takes out a walkie talkie. 

“Codename Plane. Passcode First Strike.” I feel my eyes go wide. 

“Tyler, no,” He ignores me. 

“Proceed with remote detonation.”

I leap out of my seat and tackle him. The gun clatters to the ground. I grab it. I point it at him as he gets to his feet. He sees the gun, an annoyed scowl falls across his lips. 

“Haven’t we done this already?”

I shoot twice. Bullets pass right through him, like he’s not there. 

Oh, right. 

He rolls his eyes at me and drops the walkie talkie to the ground and stomps it, crushing the hard plastic underneath his heeled boots. 

“How did you fucking do that?! You’re just a voice in my head!” 

“And you’re a voice in mine!”

I falter. We share the same body, right? I look down at Tyler’s feet. There’s no walkie talkie. I look down at mine. The walkie talkie is crushed underneath my foot.

“Fuck,” I hold my head and pace once. 

“Why, why, why?” 

“Why what?” I look at him. He’s calmed down a little, looks curious. Fuck him. 

“Why can’t I get rid of you?” He smiles, like the cat that got the goddamn canary. 

“Cause you need me, Jack.” That’s the first time he’s said my name. I pause, feel the gun in my grip. 

“I don’t think I do, Tyler.” He sighs and looks away then back up at me. 

“Look, I know I can be selfish. I’m not blind, but,”

“Tyler...”

“We’ve been spending too much time apart,”

“Tyler, no,”

“No more running off without you. From here on out, we do it together, yeah?” 

“Why are you doing this?” He looks frustrated. 

“I’m doing this for us!”

“Tyler, please, I’ve gotten as much from this as I can.” He sighs, looks down. He looks back up at me. 

“If I leave, you’ll go right back where I found you. Right back to doing paperwork and wishing all the planes you ride will crash.” 

“I swear, Tyler, I won’t.” He looks up at me, incredulous and heartbroken. 

“Man, I know you! Of course you will.” 

I stare at him, tears welling up in my eyes. I look down at the gun in my hand. 

“Can you live with that? Can you live with the Ikea catalogs and the support groups again?”

I stare at the gun. I lift it up to my mouth. Tyler cocks his head. 

“What are you doing?” 

“What have you left for me?” He looks a little panicked. 

“Jack, come on. Take the gun out of your mouth.”

“Not my mouth, Tyler. Our mouth.” Tyler slowly walks toward me, stands very close. 

“What are you doing, Ikea-boy?” 

“It’s the only way to get rid of you.” He smiles, small and sweet, edged with something like concern. I cock the gun. 

“I can see you feel very strongly. I feel strongly too,” The ‘about you’ is unsaid. He pauses, looks me in the eye. 

“Hey, you and me, like always. Friends?” He puts a lot of weight on the word friend, like it means something. We look at each other for a while, unblinking. I really like his eyes. All diamond blue and seductive, sucking you in. 

“Do something for me.” I let the gun drop to my side. He watches it fall, something akin to relief on his face, gives me a profound look. 

“Anything.” 

I lean in and kiss him. He wraps his hands around my face, pulls me close, his ring cold against my cheek. We pull back. 

“Appreciate something,” I say it against his lips, feel them move along with his. 

“What?” 

“Look at me,” He looks back up at me. 

“What?” I smile at him as a tear falls down. 

“I’m sorry.”

I push him to the ground, bring the gun up to my mouth and pull the trigger. I feel the impact in my cheek, the numbness from the shock. My ears ring as I fall on the ground next to him. He turns his head to look at me, eyes glazed, blood puddling from the back of his head. 

“Whatever you say, lover boy.”

I close my eyes as I feel blood pour from my cheek. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes that title is an arctic monkey song (it’s called do me a favor) no i will not elaborate. i started reading the script during class out of boredom and wanted to rewrite a scene and now i have the one of the longest fics i’ve ever written ... so that’s fun. but i hope you enjoy this i will post the rest tomorrow


	2. Chapter 2

It’s been a month and a half since Tyler. I’ve realized that I split my life into two separate things: before and after Tyler.

I bet he’d love that. 

They give me pills and I take them. The pills make me sleep for 15 hours a day. My dreams are filled with cigarette smoke and bloody knuckles, blue eyes and broken-down homes. 

Marla said she’d come get me when they let me out. She visits me every other week, brings me sweaters and chocolate. She even jokes and I laugh. It’s one of the highlights of my week. The only people other than Marla that talk to me are men with split lips and black eyes. I ignore them.

Every so often I catch a glimpse of something Tyler related and I try to ignore it, try to move on. Seems like I can’t from him. They let me out 2 weeks later with a pill bottle and my clothes from that night. I throw them away the minute we get back to Marla’s apartment. 

She has a rich girlfriend now that lives uptown and she bought Marla an apartment. It’s super nice. I can’t remember the last time I lived in a house with clean water and working electricity. She even has a flat-screen TV. 

She has all my clothes from Paper Street somehow. She smiles at me from her perch on the bed as I try on my clothes again. 

“I kept all the nice ones, even stole a couple more for you while you were in the slammer.” 

I roll my eyes at her as I put on a t-shirt I’ve never seen before. It has a logo for a store I’ve never been too and it looks like the floor of an arcade. 

It reminds of what Tyler would wear, something random and repulsive, but he’d pull it off anyway.

“It wasn’t a prison.” She scoffs as she picks at her nail polish, cigarette limp in her hand. 

“Should’ve been the way it looked.” Her nail polish falls from her fingers onto the bed like black snow. 

She doesn’t work, I can’t remember if she ever did, so we lounge around the nice ass apartment all day, eat ice cream from the tub while we watch trashy TV. She falls asleep on my shoulder and I kiss her forehead, place the blanket over her body. I sleep better than I have in a long time. 

— — 

After a while, I get bored just staying in all day. Marla isn’t around all the time because her girlfriend takes her out on expensive vacations or shopping sprees. 

She always brings me back something. I have my own room on the other side of hers and it’s quickly filled with trinkets from tourist shops and nicer clothes than I’m used too.

They have labels and feel nice on my skin, unlike the scratchy shirts I used to wear. One day I leave the house to go get milk and on the way home, I stop at a used book store. The woman at the front desk, who’s combat boot-clad feet were propped on the desk, asked me if I was there for a job interview.

I say yes. Her name is Andy and her voice is low like every word she’s spoken was sarcasm. She hires me. I start the next week. It’s quiet. We don’t usually talk much besides making fun of certain customers. 

She brings me coffee in the morning. I organize books and stock the shelves. 

When it gets slow in the day, Andy goes to the back sitting section and curls up with a book. I watch the sunset through the glass windows. I go home to Marla sitting on the counter, smoking. She smiles at me as I walk in. 

“Wanna go get Chinese food?” I smile at her and nod. 

— — 

It’s been 6 months since Tyler and I’m in our fancy kitchen making coffee. I turn to open the fridge to get creamer and there he is, standing across the kitchen leaning on the wall.

He almost looks out of place against the soft blue paint, but Tyler fits in anywhere. He’s wearing a short pink shirt and a white jacket that looks like it went through a paper shredder. His hair has grown  back some. He smiles at me around an unlit cigarette. 

“Honey, I’m home.” He snickers around the cigarette. I put the creamer in my coffee, stir it in with a fancy long spoon. I drink my coffee. 

“You’re not going to say anything?” I put my mug back down on the counter.

“What do you want me to say, Tyler? Sorry I killed you?” He laughs . I hate that I missed the sound. 

“Attempted to kill,” He corrects. He looks down for a second and then back up at me, a questioning look on his face. 

“It would be nice to hear.”

I think about it for a minute. 

“I am sorry, for shooting you.”

I have no clue what I’m feeling right now. I should be angry, I should be kicking him out of my head again, but I’m not. I’m not happy either. Tyler’s always been my enigma. He smiles. 

“I’m sorry for not being a good friend.” I scoff. 

“How are you even back?” Tyler tongues his cigarette to the other side of his mouth. 

“Who knows?” I sigh, sip from my coffee.

“Why are you back?” He laughs, bright and sickening. 

“Cause’ you wanted me back. Or I wanted to be back. I don’t know, man.” I let myself smile. 

“Okay.” 

“Okay?” He looks confused and excited at the same time. 

“Okay.” I sip my coffee. 

— — 

Marla comes home the next day from a trip with arms full of shopping bags and lipstick on her cheek. I wipe it off as I help her with the bags. 

“How was the trip?”

Tyler’s cutting magazine headings on the couch. Marla sets the bags on the counter and the floor. 

“It was a drag, but she was amazing if you know what I mean.” Tyler snickers. I ignore him.

She searches in a bag and pulls out clothes, sizes them up to her body. Since we’re rich now, Marla doesn’t wear thrift store clothes anymore.

She wears designer clothes that look like they came from the thrift store, but they look like that on purpose. I’m not sure why rich people wanna look poor, but hey, who am I to judge? I look back at Tyler, who’s whistling to himself as the paper falls from his scissors.

Marla wears her usual style still, but fancier. Sometimes she looks like the evil lady from 101 Dalmatians. Tyler laughs loudly from his spot on the couch.

I roll my eyes and turn back to Marla. She’s handing me something.

“Are you okay?” She asks me, skeptical for some reason. I look her in the eye. She looks like she knows something. 

“Yeah, I’m fine.” I try not to glance at Tyler. 

“What’s this?” She watches me for a moment before going back to the clothes. 

“It’s a snow globe.”

“You got me a snow globe?” I take the newspaper rapping off. It’s a New York City snow globe, but the buildings in it are crumbling down like an apocalypse. It has ‘New York City’ engraved in fallen letters on the bottom. 

“You like it?” Tyler comes up behind me and looks at it. He raises his eyebrows at me.

“Little on the nose, don’t you think?” She laughs and comes over to me, kisses my cheek. 

“I think it suits you,” She starts to walk towards her room with some of the bags. 

“I got you some clothes in the gray bags. Try them on!” She closes the door behind her. 

Tyler immediately starts looking through the bags. He throws on a red leather jacket from the bag. I wonder if Marla knew what she was doing. I tried not to think of the old one. He was wearing it when we first met. God, what a fucking cliche. 

He spins slowly. He put it on over his Hawaiian shirt and black sweatpants. He looks ridiculous and somehow hot at the same time. He smiles at me as he completes the turn. 

“Is it too much?” I try not to laugh because of Marla. I come over and adjust his collar, try not to think about my hands on his collarbone. 

I shake my head and grab the bags, grab his wrist in my other hand and drag us to my room. I feel him laugh behind me. 

— —

Tyler is in front of the floor to wall mirror trying on all the clothes Marla got me. He throws them at me when he’s done. I’m sitting on the bed, the red leather jacket on. 

He throws a collared shirt at me. He’s shirtless and I stare as he tries on a gray Micheal Kors sweater. We make eye connect in the mirror. He smirks at me. 

“More your style.” He takes it off and throws it at me. I take the jacket off and slip the sweater on. He’s right, it is my style. It’s cashmere and soft. 

Tyler tries on a loose long sleeve shirt. It looks really good on him. He turns and examines himself, looks back at me. I nod in approval. 

He laughs softly, falls down next to me dramatically on the bed. His arm brushes mine as he picks up the magazine that came from the bag. He flicks through it loudly and I try not to watch him, but I do. He peeks from the top of the magazine. 

“Something on your mind?”

“Wouldn’t you know?” He chuckles and drops the magazine on top of his stomach, his undivided attention on me. Tyler has a way of making his gaze seem like the most important thing. It still is to me. 

“It’s nothing.” He keeps his gaze on me until I feel like I’m imploding. 

“I’m glad you’re back,” He sighs softly. 

“But?” 

“How do I know you won’t take over when I go to sleep?” 

“I haven’t done anything without you knowing.” I give him a look and he sits up on his elbows to look at me better. 

“I promise.” I smile. We seem to repeat things a lot. 

“You promise?” His lips upturn slightly, something so small you could barely call it a smirk. 

“I promise, lover boy.”

— —

For the rest of the week, we’re Ozzie and Harriet. Again. We become domestic like the good ole days. He kisses my cheek and hands me my keys every day like a sitcom.

I go to work and Andy hands me my usual coffee in the morning. She pauses.

“You look happy.” It surprises me. 

“Thank you?” She laughs, sips her iced coffee. 

“Course,” She laughs to herself as she goes into the back room. I shrug it off. 

When I come home later, I come equipped with books that we had sitting on the shelves for too long. I place them gently on the counter and dust them off. 

“What do you have there?” I look up and Tyler’s got a sucker in his hand, hanging from his mouth. I forget what he asked as I watch his lips. He smirks around the sucker. 

“Earth to pyscho boy,” I snap out of it.

“Huh?” He laughs and walks around me, his hand gliding across my shoulder. He keeps it there as he looks at the books. 

“Daniel Steel, huh?” I push him off and bring the books to the empty bookshelf, set them up nice and neat. He comes up behind me and leans against my shoulder. He glances at me, the sucker flat on his tongue. 

“They look good. You gonna read em?” 

“Maybe. It’d be nice to have a hobby.”

“What, I’m not considered a hobby?” I turn to him and roll my eyes. He laughs and bites the sucker clean off. I hear it crunch against his teeth, watch him lick a bit of candy crystal off his lips. His arm is still on my shoulder and he pulls me towards him. 

“Tyler? What-“ He kisses me. His tongue runs against my teeth and I curve my hand in place on his cheek. I taste the cherry from the sucker. 

It’s weird, kissing Tyler. I have to remind myself he’s not real and somehow this is all in my head. It feels real. I feel the warmth his body radiates and the way his hands feel against my neck, my shoulder. I definitely feel his tongue in my mouth.

When we pull back to breathe, I chase his lips. He laughs, soft and brief like cigarette smoke. He pats my neck and his hand falls down to mine. He intertwines our hands. 

“Hungry?” I nod. He pulls me towards the kitchen. 

— —

Marla comes home an hour later. Me and Tyler made spaghetti and I’m laughing loudly from a joke he told. He’s sitting on the counter, his back against the cupboards. I’m facing him, watching his eyes crinkle from his smile. I don’t notice Marla until she clears her throat.

I startle and then turn around, my bowl clattering against the counter. She’s silent for a moment.

“He’s back, isn’t he?” I don’t say anything. 

She already knows the answer. She always does. She’s very intuitive that way. She sighs.

Tyler’s silent behind me. It’s like we were caught in the act. I’m not sure what act, but I feel bad, like I let her down or something.

“Marla...” 

“Are you fucking him?” I feel my face turn hot. I stay silent again. She sighs. 

“Okay.” 

“Okay?” 

“Yeah, okay.” She starts walking towards her room and I follow her.

“Marla, I’m-“ She turns around.

“You don’t have to be sorry. I trust you, okay?” She hugs me and she pulls back just as quick. 

“Be careful.” I smile at her reassuringly. She smiles back and heads to her room. The door shuts and the sound echos in my mind. 

Tyler comes up behind me, places a hand on my arm. I turn around, end up way too close to his face. 

“I should be the one being careful.” He kisses me hard. It makes me shudder when he pulls away. He smirks and grabs my hand, pulls me to my room. 

“Tyler, the mess-“ He smiles sharp against my lips, his grip tight on my hips. 

“Later.” 

— —

After we’re done, Tyler snuggles against my chest, snoring lightly. His hair is all spiky and his arms are around my waist, his breath coming out uneven on my chest. God, who knew a projection of self could be so adorable.

Being with Tyler again is different than before. Before it was all hard edges and tumbles in mattresses stained with too many things to count and making soap at 3 in the morning. 

Now we sleep in a bed with clean sheets and he smiles at me from a couch nicer than anything I’ve ever owned and he scoots over when I sit down next to him and snuggles into me like a cat. It’s very different. But it’s a good different. 

He’s somehow softer now than before. Tyler al ways had his moments when we were living at Paper Street, but it’s different now. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t have an end goal. No buildings to blow up or people to recruit. Just simply living. 

“Stop thinking so loud,” He mumbles it and it startles me out of my thoughts. I feel myself smile, my eyes closed from dozing. 

“Sorry.” He hums in acknowledgment, pulls me closer somehow. 

“Go ahead. Ask your question.” It comes out soft and sultry in a Tyler sort of way. I chuckle quietly, my hand trailing up and down the curve of his back. 

“Are you happy?” Tyler’s breath catches and he sits up slowly, his chin propped up on my chest. I open my eyes. 

“What?” I guess he wasn’t expecting that, which is funny. 

“Are you happy?” I repeat it and he scoffs.

“What does that matter?” 

“It matters to me,” He looks at me, thinking or not thinking at all. I’m never sure when it comes to Tyler.

“I mean, what really is happiness? I’m here with you, isn’t that enough?” 

“You’re stuck with me though.” He smiles, something small and gentle.

“Maybe I wanna be stuck with you.” He drags himself up to my lips, kisses me. We pull away and he lays back down onto my chest, caresses my rips with his scarred hands.

Who knew Tyler Durden was a hopeless romantic. He laughs barely, something close to a scoff. 

“You do, pyscho-boy.” I feel his eyelashes flutter against my rib cage. 

“You know.” We fall asleep at the same time, our scarred hands intertwined. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you guys enjoyed this !! it took forever but i really like it. smash that kudos and comment down below <3

**Author's Note:**

> yes that title is an arctic monkey (it’s called do me a favor) song no i will not elaborate. i started reading the script during class out of boredom and wanted to rewrite a scene and now i have the one of the longest fics i’ve ever written ... so that’s fun. but i hope you enjoy this i will post the rest tomorrow


End file.
